The Justice Department filed suit under the Voting Rights Act today challenging Georgia's runoff election system that requires candidates to receive a majority of the vote to win an election. The law, similar to legislation in eight other Southern states, gives "white candidates an extraordinary power," said John R. Dunne, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights.

MEXICO CITY - A former left-wing guerrilla leader held a wide lead in El Salvador's presidential race Sunday night, but it was unclear whether Salvador Sanchez Ceren could avoid a runoff. With 57% of the ballots tallied, Sanchez Ceren, the vice president of El Salvador, had a bit more than 49% of the vote. If he draws more than 50%, he will avoid a runoff provisionally scheduled for March 9. Norman Quijano, a former mayor of the capital, San Salvador, came in second, with 38% of the vote.

Burbank voters, their ranks reduced by rain, filled one of two open school board seats in Tuesday's elections, but failed to give any of the candidates for the City Council a victory, setting up a runoff vote April 13. City Clerk Marge Lauerman won a second four-year term, taking 53% of the vote against Margarita Campos. City Treasurer Jim Rogers was unopposed.

Compton voters have ushered in a new guard by electing political newcomer Aja Brown as mayor over controversial former city leader Omar Bradley, and appearing to send the first Latino representative to the City Council. Initial results showed Brown, a 31-year-old USC-educated urban planner, beating Bradley, a former two-term mayor, by 4,143 votes to his 2,360. Bradley and Brown went to Tuesday's runoff after defeating current Mayor Eric Perrodin and a crowded field of challengers, including former child actor Rodney Allen Rippy, in April's primary.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon proposed sweeping political reforms Tuesday that would allow federal lawmakers and some other officials to be reelected and provide for runoff elections for president if no candidate gained more than half the votes. Calderon said the reforms would make Mexican officials more accountable to voters, who tend to view politicians across a deep chasm of cynicism and mistrust. Some of the proposed changes, such as making room on the ballot for independent candidates, have been promoted by activists as a way to let fresh air into Mexico's musty political system and improve citizen participation as the country tries to develop a real democracy.

Voters get to decide this week whether Alaska will become the first state with instant runoff elections, something supporters say would give third-party candidates a fighting chance. The initiative, appearing on Tuesday's gubernatorial primary ballots, would replace Alaska's majority-vote election with preferential voting similar to the method used in San Francisco city elections and that used to elect lord mayor of London and members of the Australian House.

Former Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard emerged as the clear front-runner in the city's first mayoral election in 88 years, but his April runoff opponent will not be known until at least Friday, officials said. With 1,700 absentee ballots yet to be counted from Tuesday's election, Mayor Chris Holden leads Councilwoman Ann-Marie Villicana by only 179 votes for a spot in the runoff against Bogaard, who fell short of the 50% plus one needed to win the office outright.

The City Council has tentatively approved an ordinance prohibiting write-in candidates from participating in runoff elections. Councilwoman Donna Frye nearly unseated incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy with her write-in campaign during November's runoff election. She will face former San Diego Police Chief Jerry Sanders in a Nov. 8 runoff.

Police fired on opposition supporters and beat them with batons as clashes erupted during parliamentary runoff elections Tuesday. One person died, and dozens were wounded. The runoff vote in Ashmun, 25 miles northwest of Cairo, pitted a candidate backed by the Muslim Brotherhood against one running on the ticket of the ruling National Democratic Party.

The day after a special election last week, Republican Andy Vidak declared victory in the race for a vacant state Senate seat. He had 52% of the vote. But provisional ballots counted since then put Vidak just below the majority vote he needed to win the 16 th District seat outright. As a result, he will face the second-place candidate, Democrat Leticia Perez, in a July 23 runoff election. The secretary of state said Wednesday night that the final vote tally was 49.8% for Vidak and 43.9% for Perez in a field of six candidates.

The residents of the close-knit coastal enclave of San Pedro have long felt like the city's redheaded stepchild, geographically and culturally removed from the downtown power structure, the bright lights of Hollywood and the sprawling San Fernando Valley. But in the Los Angeles mayoral race, they are seeing fresh attention from Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti as the rivals try to stitch together coalitions to win the May 21 runoff. Within the span of a week, the candidates appeared at port workers' union halls a block apart in the area's historic downtown, pledging they would not forget this corner of L.A. "This is the economic engine of our entire city," Greuel said Saturday as she rallied supporters at the headquarters of ILWU Local 63, the Marine Clerks Assn.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Brazil's governing Workers' Party won control of South America's largest city as Fernando Haddad was elected mayor of Sao Paulo in Sunday's runoff municipal elections. The big election day prize was won after popular former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Dilma Rousseff threw their support behind Haddad, a former education minister. "I thank President [Lula] for the guidance and support. Without it, it wouldn't have been possible to achieve this victory," Haddad said in his victory speech.

The politicians who oversee the Los Angeles community colleges just won a large measure of protection from voters and other inconveniences of democracy thanks to a bad bill that on Saturday became a bad law. Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 2572, a bill deceptively modest in its language but astonishing in its audacity. It's a kind of incumbent protection plan for entrenched members of L.A.'s Community College District Board of Trustees, and it comes to their rescue in the wake of last year's revelations of massive waste and corruption in district construction programs - and just as voters may be ready to focus on the ineptitude of the elected trustees who oversaw it. Under the new law, runoff elections are swept away, supposedly to save money, and an incumbent can now keep his or her seat (and yes, a challenger can now get elected)

June 17, 2012 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Reem Abdellatif, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO - Egyptians began voting Saturday for a new president, but the joy that defined the first round of elections last month had turned sullen, as if they were enduring the final betrayal of a revolution by a ruling military that has manipulated events from the wings for six decades. The choice they face in two days of balloting is stark and unsettling: Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi represents an untested political Islam, and Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister to serve toppled leader Hosni Mubarak, is an old-guard loyalist whose victory would repudiate the demands for change that fueled last year's rebellion.

June 11, 2012 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Reem Abdellatif, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO - A movement to boycott this week's runoff presidential election is gaining momentum, threatening Egypt's restive transition to democracy and revealing a sharpening disdain by voters over the choice between a conservative Islamist and a holdover from the old guard. That dilemma highlights the polarizing struggle between political Islam and the secular police state. The state has handily won this battle since the 1950s. But the country's first free presidential election shows Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi in a tight race with Ahmed Shafik, a remnant of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's government.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's governing National Democratic Party won a majority in a new governmental advisory body, final returns indicated. The opposition charged fraud. Interior Minister Zaki Badr said on national television that 162 seats were filled in voting that ended Thursday and that runoff elections will be held this week for 10 remaining seats. Under the constitution, Mubarak will appoint an additional 86 members from minority groups and among intellectuals to the Shura Council, a consultative body without binding authority.

PARIS - He calls himself Mr. Normal. But that's only if "normal" means having the chance to become one of France's strongest presidents in recent memory. Francois Hollande, the unassuming politician who won last month's presidential election, is on the verge of cementing that victory by securing a legislative majority. If his Socialists can achieve that feat at the polls Sunday, or at least join up afterward with allies from like-minded parties, Hollande would occupy a commanding position that France's left hasn't enjoyed in a generation.

WASHINGTON -- Ted Cruz, the tea party-backed GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, will face establishment-backed David Dewhurst in a runoff this summer that will test conservative strength. Dewhust, the Texas lieutenant governor, failed to achieve the 50% threshold needed to cinch the nomination for a seat that is expected to remain Republican-held in the general election this fall. The runoff is July 31, a mid-summer date that is likely to lead to a relatively low, and unpredictable, turnout, according to Texas political analysts.